Woosnam revels in the glory

Europe's victorious Ryder Cup captain Ian Woosnam woke up on Monday morning with the mother of all hangovers, but any feelings of nausea and headaches were made far easier by the realisation of what he and his team had achieved over the previous three days at the K Club.

Woosnam (pictured) had been castigated in various sections of the media ahead of the Ryder Cup, mainly for his perceived poor handling of the wildcard situation and the furore caused by the rejected Thomas Bjorn afterwards. However, the Welshman had the last laugh after leading his team to an 18.5 - 9.5 win over Tom Lehman's USA.

"It was tough, but you 'll see from the results that I got my picks right," Woosnam said, in reference to Lee Westwood and Darren Clarke's enormous contribution to the European team.

"That's why I was the captain - to make those difficult decisions. Not winning with such a strong team was the thing that worried me most but all the boys played fantastically. It's been emotional and I can't say enough about my team."

After arriving back in London on Monday, Woosnam went on to challenge his players to turn their dominance in the Ryder Cup into success at Major championships. Europe have not lost the Ryder Cup since 1999 but, coincidentally, have not won any of the four Major championships since that year.

"Hopefully they'll turn this team success into success at the Majors," the 1991 Masters champion said.

"They just have to believe in themselves to win loads of Majors. European golf is looking very strong. We have a young bunch of players who performed so well and a lot of these guys are going to be in the team for a very long time."